Law enforcement collects a large quantity of digital assets that may or may not be subsequently used as evidence during legal case proceedings. Examples of digital assets may include video/audio from body-worn cameras and automobile dash cameras, as well as other types of digital content, such as suspect/victim/witness interviews, telephone call recordings, radio recordings, dispatch data, license plate reader information, crime scene photos and videos, vehicle location data, gunshot detection system information, information maintained in cloud storage, Global Positioning System (GPS) information, vehicle computer system information, third party surveillance video, social network and microblog information, data obtained from computers and mobile devices, and so forth.
Storage of these digital assets for certain mandated retention periods requires very large amounts of digital storage capacity. In addition, a basic requirement of evidence management is that the evidence related to an event is securely maintained so that the evidence can be used to prove the circumstances of the event. Accordingly, the digital assets must be stored securely with a clear chain of custody to prevent tampering or other changes to the digital assets. Further, some types of digital assets may need to be stored for different lengths of time from others. For example, digital assets that are used as evidence may need to be archived indefinitely, while other digital assets may only need to be stored for shorter lengths of time.